Saturday, September 29, 2012

OZ Academy 263 - COUNTRY OF OZ 2012 Review

OZ Academy 263 - COUNTRY OF OZ 2012 Review

Sareee and Nao Komatsu vs Command Bolshoi and Rabbit Miu

Nao's fanclub

Commando Bolshoi got the win over Nao Komatsu with the japanese leg clutch. This was below your standard opening joshi matches. Nao and Sareee really didn't show much here and Bolshoi basically held it all together. Rating:3/4*

Manami Toyota got the win for her team with a Queen Bee Bomb on Yumi Ohka. This was a good match with your typical Oz Academy heel interference. Kuragaki was the star of this by far. I couldn't believe she racked three girls at the same time and I enjoyed her backdropping two girls at the same time. Other than that, not too many other highlights here. While this was good, they didn't do anything extra because this was the second match. It's unfortunate though because they could have done much more. Ozaki really didn't even get in the ring at all here. Rating:**1/2

Ran YuYu vs Meiko Satomura

Ran hits the hanging dragon

Meiko won here with her sleeper without any real problems at all. They really clipped this even though it was about 12 minutes. Ran controlled the early portion of this, but after Meiko got the pele kick, she took it from there. Ran is starting to look old out there. I think her knees are finally gone. Meiko looked as young and as good as ever though. Rating:**

Mayumi Ozaki vs Carlos Amano

I guess Oz is doing double duty tonight. Don't know why.

Carlos Amano gets jumped by POLICE and Mika Nishio

Carlos Amano gets busted open hardway from a chain

Mayumi Ozaki beat Carlos Amano with a shining wizard off of POLICE's back. Okay, this was your stereotypical Mayumi Ozaki match that I hate. If you follow my reviews, you know that I hate interference/cheating in full view of the ref without someone getting DQ'd and this was full of that. I don't get it. Why does Oz even bother being the only person in the ring? If she can cheat as much as she wants, why doesn't she just bring her whole crew with her? Better yet, since weapons are allowed, why not just bring a gun to the ring and end it early? This was okay even with all that but it was a waste. Rating:*

Both teams fought to a draw after 30 minutes.
Aja then got on the mic asked for more time and they agreed!
Sudden Death - Oz Academy Tag titles: Aja Kong and Sonoko Kato (c) vs AKINO and Ayumi Kurihara

The finish

Ayumi Kurihara pinned Aja Kong when AKINO kicked Aja in the head. This was a strong match. Kurihara was in there so the heat was good and everyone was pretty into AKINO. They had alot of nice spots which you can see above and they all had no problem stiffing the crap out of each other. What can you say, this was an awesome match all around and definitely worth a watch. Rating:****

Chikayo Nagashima beat Hiroyo Matsumoto with the 360 footstomp. They screwed this one up bad. Chikayo looked too strong early on, despite being a fraction of Hiroyo's size. She didn't sell much or present Hiroyo as any kind of threat and this turned into a long squash. Some of it is Hiroyo's fault as she didn't have enough move wise to look like a bigger threat, but most of the fault belongs to whoever booked this. It was still an okay match, don't get me wrong, but it was terribly one-sided and had me waiting for it to end. Rating:**

Hiroyo doing an interview after getting misted

Overall thoughts: Pretty good show. The semi-main was great as was Meiko vs Ran. The 6-woman tag had it's moments and that's about it. You should see this for the tag match.

2 comments
:

It's not really a "screw up" if you consider size has never really mattered in joshi puroresu if the smaller wrestling is a veteran and most importantly because of that A LOT higher up on the totem pole. Hell, even in the 90s you had Ozaki pinning Chigusa despite being the smallest woman active at the time. I agree that Chikayo looked too strong but that interpretation of the size differential being a "screw up" is wrong considering the above and the fact that Chikayo just turned heel and has gone to the "dark" side according to Japanese fans.

I meant that they screwed up in reference to making Hiroyo look so weak. I think they could have made her look much better while pushing heel Chikayo strong in another manner. I expected this to be more of a coming out party instead of a go away party.

Thank you for your comment. Good post! Hope they keep heel Chikayo away from Kato/Carlos because I don't think anyone could buy that with how close they are. I know I couldn't!